The 2013 Honda Gold Wing F6B moves many of its controls to a panel just in front of the rider's left knee. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

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Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

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Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

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Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. It's powered with a liquid-cooled, horizontally opposed, six-cylinder 1,832 cc engine. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

1 of 9

Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

1 of 9

Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. It's powered with a liquid-cooled, horizontally opposed, six-cylinder 1,832 cc engine. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

1 of 9

Honda's classic touring bike, the Gold Wing, is updated for 2013 with a streamlined profile that ditches the trunk and tall windscreen but keeps the stereo and other creature comforts. It's powered with a liquid-cooled, horizontally opposed, six-cylinder 1,832 cc engine. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

One of the more notable attributes of the updated Honda Gold Wing is how little it actually looks like one. Gone are the trunk, the tall windscreen, the wholesome colors — anything that in previous years prompted jokes about its RVish proportions.

No. For 2013, Honda is going American with an edgier, bagger style that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Victory Cross Country and Harley-Davidson Street Glide. Even its powertrain is more menacing. It isn't a V-twin, but it is blacked out and bigger than its U.S. competition.

Honda let me borrow the bike for a long weekend, during which I took my 10-year-old to school a couple times on "the fat one," as he called it. There was another, naked bike in my driveway, but he preferred the Gold Wing for the same reason as many of its 550,000 buyers (to date) like it: comfort.

Honda hasn't given up any of the Gold Wing's La-Z-Boy amenities. It's just repackaged them for a younger audience. Instead of Baby Boomers, the new Gold Wing is angling for iconoclastic Gen Xers, who are getting to an age where they, too, appreciate an upright riding position, comfortable seat and quiet powertrain to preserve what remains of their hearing.

Priced like a car, the $19,999 Gold Wing F6B is sized as if a Civic was chopped in half. It is, however, easier to ride than it looks. Its center of gravity is lower than the outgoing model, making it easier to control. The redesigned seat is also wide where it counts but narrow where it meets the tank, allowing vertically challenged riders to sit flat footed more easily when stopped. Both improvements are important to a bike that lost 62 pounds in its redo but still tips the scales at 842 pounds. It also helped me heave this beast backward without tipping over – but with a lot of effort — since the Gold Wing doesn't have a reverse gear.

Like the original Gold Wing, first introduced in 1975, the F6B is powered with a liquid-cooled, horizontally opposed engine and shaft drive. Thirty-eight years later, the engine is now a six- rather than four-cylinder with nearly double the displacement. Its 1,832 cc engine and five-speed transmission are the same as the last Gold Wing I rode, which was new at the time of the bike's last update, in 2006.

Back then, I counted 51 control buttons and knobs, many of which were displayed on the tank like a technological smorgasbord. For the 2013 model, those buttons have been clustered and condensed, with most of the controls for the premium audio and plug-in accessories just in front of the rider's left knee. Some of the most used controls, including toggles for the stereo's volume and radio settings, are replicated in the left hand grip. Cruising the streets in low gear, the premium stereo sounded crisp and clear, but it took some serious volume cranking to hear it over the wind at speed.

The F6B is available in two colors – black and red – and in two trims. I was riding the standard model. The deluxe version includes a passenger backrest, center stand, self-canceling turn signals and heated grips, all of which can be purchased individually as accessories for the base model.

With its F6B, Honda is playing down the Gold Wing's rep as a fully loaded tourer, but the capability is still there. Its two integrated saddlebags are wide enough to hold a full-face helmet and a backpack on each side. In addition, there are two cubbies within the rider's reach. Both are large enough to carry cell phones, iPods, maps or wads of cash.

Aesthetically, the new Gold Wing has a stripped-down Harley appeal with its blacked out bodywork, wheels, engine and aluminum frame. Still, there are foot pegs rather than floorboards. And its exhaust note is more subdued. The power characteristics of a flat six are also quite different from a V-twin. It's a higher-revving engine, so it's easy to short shift and feel as if the bike's run out of gears, which won't be the case unless riders crack 100 mph.

Sunday, I flew the Gold Wing up my favorite road to nowhere — Azusa's Highway 39 — where the big bird loved sweeping turns. Its handling really defies its gargantuan proportions. Slowing down, its combined braking system links the front and rear brakes, overriding the bad habits of many riders who choose to brake with just their hands or feet.

The true test of a motorcycle as large as the F6B, is its low-speed handling, which it does well enough, but not so well that I felt confident splitting lanes in locked up traffic. Despite its new stripped-down look, the Gold Wing is still a lot of bike.

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